Spirits
by yami-marron
Summary: " I'm never the first one.   Let's face it. I'm good, but not the best. I'm smart, but not the smartest. I'm wise, but not the wisest. Strong, but never enough. "


_I'm never the first one. _

_Let's face it. I'm good, but not the best. I'm smart, but not the smartest. I'm wise, but not the wisest. Strong, but never enough. Fast, but there are always ones that are faster than me. And while most people think, that everyone would like to be me, in reality, there's no such person. I'm useful, but not irreplaceable. I'm liked, but I'm not needed. I'm something irrelevant, it's good while I'm here, but nobody misses me, while I'm gone. I'm only a tiny part of other people's lives._

_I'm just another strong shinobi in the eyes of my village._

_I'm just another warrior that obeys orders in my Hokage's eyes._

_I'm just a teacher who needs to be surpassed by his students._

_So why do I exist?_

_Am I just a useful character in someone's book that will influence the main hero's life and then stand in his shadow?_

_What about my ambitions? Ha! I guess no one even for a moment suspected, that I have some. After all, why should I ? I'm just a tool, just a background character, which is interesting enough to catch reader's eye, but still has to give up his place to the main hero. Of course, I'm proud, that Naruto is strong, stronger than anyone else. Including me. But…It hurts somehow. I taught him everything I could and he moved on – he's more powerful than I could ever be._

_All my life I was training, I was forcing myself to work harder, be better, to ignore the pain and exhaustion and some teenager beats me to it? What a joke._

_Oh, I'm supposed to write my 'inner thoughts with motives behind them', said the doctor, let's try doing just that._

_First of all, why am I so bitter about the children's (because it's not only Naruto, who is getting stronger) power? Because I think I'm losing here. Yes, be happy you evil psych-nin, we're getting to my relations with parents. When I was a child, I thought that mother left us, because she wasn't strong enough to survive. Just that. I never understood father, why he was so broken because of the death of a weak woman – wasn't he do the one who told me, that being strong is the only way to be successful as a human? So I did my best to be strong- both physically and mentally. Tougher than rock. When my father committed suicide, the only reason I could think of was that he was too weak to live with consequences of his stupid (in my younger self's opinion) actions. But after some time I started to wonder – do I have the same weakness in my genes? Would I end up like him? _

_I couldn't let it happen, so I did my best to surpass him in every possible way. I wanted to be a better shinobi, better human, better man than him._

_I've never managed to do that. He never taught me anything apart from being a ninja of Konoha._

_So in my mind, being the best in everything became the only way to surpass my father in the eyes of others, I ignored the 'human' and 'man' part._

_It was a mistake._

_After Obito's death I became a different person. A far worse person. Yes, I changed my mind about 'comrades and orders', but I threw away the last chance to become a good man. I became an ANBU._

_Sometimes I wonder, if Kakashi and Hound aren't different persons. I don't think I would recognize myself in him. He destroyed Rin. _

_When we were about…Eighteen? She confessed her love for me and asked, no, begged me to go out with her. I agreed, not because I felt anything for her, but because it was important to her and I didn't really care. _

_It broke her heart. It was our third month together when she asked, why I hadn't even once tried to kiss her. I replied that I didn't feel any need to do that. I was too stupid to think about the consequences of telling the truth to a girl who was in love with me. _

_She asked me if she wasn't attractive to me. I said that she was right. _

_She asked me if I thought that she was ugly. I said that I couldn't care less_

_She asked if I liked her. I said that I'd never said anything like that._

_She asked me, if I needed her. I said that I didn't._

_She asked me, why. My only answer was that Obito told me to make her happy._

'_And that's all?' She asked. Oh, I remember it so vividly. I was such a cold-hearted bastard that time. I replied: 'What else did you expect?'_

_Next day she was on a S-rank mission on which she was killed._

_Later I found out, that she begged the Hokage to give her that mission and she left a letter in her house in which she wrote to me, that she didn't think she would survive, but if she did, she would never come back here, because I hurt her so much, that she didn't want to carry on living._

_It wasn't that I didn't care about her, it was just…Me, being a cold-blooded killer instead of a boy she used to be in love with._

_Yondaime's death was the worst. He was the last person I trusted, the only one who cared about me and tried to make me understand, that being a shinobi includes being a human._

_I believed him too late. I felt so broken then…After Minato's funeral, I decided to follow his advice and act like a human._

_It was too late. Because there was no one, who wanted to see in me something else other than 'the Copy-Nin'_

With this last sentence written, Kakashi closed his notebook. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of writing down 'his problems', but during the annual medical check-up, that new psych-nin decided, that he, Kakashi was depressed and tried to find the source of it. But he was defeated by Kakashi's inner wall that guarded his mind, so he gave up and asked, no, he ordered Kakashi to write down possible causes of his 'depression'.

The silver-haired shinobi didn't see, how doing it could help him, but he was obliged to do it anyway (Godaime was very displeased if anyone ignored a medic's orders. Nobody wants to displease their Hokage, really.)

So he wrote everything that came to his mind, and decided that it should do.

He stood up and headed to his room, to choose equipment for another mission, when he felt a disturbance in the air.

Something was wrong…There was someone in his house! In record time he had his kunai ready and he was moving in perfect stealth in the direction of his living room. How was it possible, that he hadn't noticed it earlier? On the other hand, who would suspect, that someone would like to break in Copy-nin's house?

The strange thing was – he didn't sense any chakra, no, just someone's presence…Curious…

He entered the room and sent kunai flying.

"Hey!" Okay, not what you hear every time you attack an enemy in your own house.

But when Kakashi looked closely, it wasn't an enemy.

In the middle of his living room stood very confused Umino Iruka.

They were looking at each other for a moment. The brown-haired teacher looked as confused as Kakashi, as if he wasn't expecting Hatake to be in his own house.

The silver-haired man decided to break the silence and ask some questions. But the first one, to come out of his mouth wasn't 'Why are you in my house', it was:

"I didn't miss. Why are you not hurt?" Iruka looked dumbfounded.

"You…You can see me?" Okay, that was strange.

"Why shouldn't I? Are you trying out some invisibility-jutsu? You still haven't answered my question." Kakashi's voice sounded firm and dangerous, but in reality, he had no idea what to make of this situation. There was a teacher in his room, who should've been dead and who looked almost as surprised as Kakashi, that he was there.

"I…I'd really like to answer your questions, Kakashi-san, but I don't know how…The only thing I know is that no one except for you sees me."


End file.
